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Best Practices in MDM, OAUG COLLABORATE 08

2.
As Yogi Berra said …
“You’ve got to be
careful if you
y
don’t know where
you re going,
you’re going
’cause you might
not get there!”
there!
Master Data Management (MDM) can be done
successfully, b t th
f ll but there will d fi it l b challenges
ill definitely be h ll

3.
Executive Summary
In today’s discussion, we will:
• present some useful MDM and Data
Governance best practices
G b t ti
• talk about what’s worked and what hasn’t
• cover th importance of a holistic approach
the i t f h li ti h
• discuss how to get the political aspects right
• give you some ideas on how to address more
than just the technology elements

5.
Master Data Management 101
• So what is MDM?
– My definition
• MDM is a set of disciplines
disciplines,
processes and technologies for
ensuring the accuracy,
completeness timeliness and
completeness,
consistency of multiple domains
of enterprise data - across
app cat o s, syste s and
applications, systems a d
databases, and across multiple
business processes, functional
areas, organizations,
geographies and channels

6.
MDM 101 (continued)
– Gartner’s definition
Gartner s
• MDM is the consistent and uniform set of
identifiers and extended attributes that
describe the core entities of the enterprise
and are used across multiple business
processes. Some examples of core entities
are parties (organizations or people),
places and thi
l d things. GGroupings of master
i f t
data include organizational hierarchies,
sales territories, product roll-ups, etc.
• MDM is a process that may be workflow-driven or transactional in
p y
nature, in which business units and IT departments collaborate,
cleanse, publish and protect common information assets that must
be shared across the enterprise. MDM ensures the consistency,
accuracy,
accuracy stewardship and accountability for the core information of
the enterprise.

7.
E-Business Suite vs. Customer Data Hub
• If you have E B i
h E-Business S it you h
Suite, have
the underlying foundation of Customer
Data Hub (the Trading Community
Architecture or TCA) and the
Customers Online “front end” to the
TCA “Party & Account” registry
y g y
• There are some differences (in the
“embedded Hub” vs. a separate Hub
instance) but a lot of the MDM best
practices we’ll discuss today still apply
• Ironically, lots of EBS sites use TCA &
y
Customers Online very little or not at all

8.
MDM 101 – Five essential elements
• Five essential elements of a
successful MDM initiative
1. The
1 Th MDM H b it lf
Hub itself
There are three major types:
Persistent Hub (stores all of the
critical data from each source system
into the central hub)
Registry Hub (stores only the identity
information and foreign keys required
for matching in the hub)
Hybrid Hub (uses a mix of both styles)

9.
MDM 101 – Five essential elements
2 D t i t
2. Data integration or middleware
ti iddl
Important to be able to synchronize
data into and out of the hub
Doesn’t have to be real-time
Whole point is to build a “Single
S
Source of Truth” for a given
f T th” f i
domain, so having out-of-date
information in your hub, or not
synchronizing data quality
improvements back to your
source systems, can defeat the
y ,
whole purpose of the program

11.
MDM 101 – Five essential elements
4. External C t t ( l
4 E t l Content (also
known as enrichment)
Having worked for D&B I
D&B,
constantly saw the value of
providing information you don’t
already have
y
It could be something as
straightforward as SIC codes,
or as complex as corporate
p p
family trees and credit ratings
When you “don’t know what you don’t know”, working
with an external content provider can be a big help

12.
MDM 101 – Five essential elements
5 D t G
5. Data Governance
This is actually the most important
Without the people and processes around
your hub, the technology will (at best) be “a
solution in search of a problem”
The business won’t accept the solution
unless th ’ d i i it and resolving
l they’re driving it, d l i
difficult questions of ownership or quality is
Courtesy: Baseline Consulting
going to take some type of cross-functional
g p,
group, with an executive sponsor, business
p ,
data stewards, IT support, etc.
Bringing together all of these elements is hard
enough – don’t try to do it without a data governance
e oug do t t y t t out go e a ce
organization

13.
MDM 101 – Major Players
• So who are the major players in the MDM
software market?
– Th
There are three quot;mega-vendorsquot; who offer
h quot; d quot; h ff
MDM platforms (Oracle, IBM and SAP) and
three smaller vendors (Siperian Initiate
(Siperian,
Systems and D&B/Purisma)
– There are some other vendors (like Tibco
Tibco,
Teradata and Kalido) that we don’t have
room to discuss here

17.
MDM 101 – Major Players
Siperian
www.siperian.com
• Products
– Siperian MDM Hub
• Thoughts
– Siperian MDM Hub is a robust product; can identify & manage
relationships among multiple types of data, such as customers,
products or accounts, across multiple applications and businesses
– Has done very well in the financial services pharmaceutical & life
services,
sciences industries; had 300% growth from ’06 to ’07
– Just received a $25 million round of financing in January, to support
additional expansion in Europe and further development of its
p p p
channels and products

19.
MDM 101 – Major Players
D&B/Purisma
www.purisma.com
• Products
– Purisma Data Hub
– MyData for D&B
• Thoughts
– Purisma acquired by D&B in Nov. ’07; a good strategic fit for both
companies – allowing D&B to become more of an MDM player;
giving Purisma the chance to extend its market reach
– Customer domains of MDM requires enrichment with external data
– Purisma provides useful data stewardship & hierarchy management
– Over time, Purisma can include product features that streamline the
time
task of working with D&B’s somewhat complex data set

20.
MDM 101 – Why Does All This Matter?
• So why are companies doing
these MDM initiatives?
– M t frequently, it’s to solve a
Most f tl it’ t l
specific business problem
– Certain industries have had
compelling external “compliance
events” (like Basel II or HIPAA)
– B t companies i every i d t are l ki t
But i in industry looking to
increase revenues, reduce costs, improve
customer service & decision making, and get
g g
more ROI from their technology investments

21.
Let’s get into best practices …
“90% of the
game i h lf
is half
mental ”
mental.
What tends to work and what tends not to work?
at te ds o a d at te ds ot o

22.
MDM Best Practice #1
• A ti
Active, i
involved executive
l d ti
sponsorship
– This is true for many projects, but
yp j ,
especially so for MDM
– To champion a change, towards
managing master data as a true
corporate asset, is going to mean
significant cultural disruption
– In most companies, that type of
change is best driven “top down”
Your executive sponsor doesn’t have to be involved in
everything, but when the rubber meets the road, you
need the “corner office” in your corner

23.
MDM Best Practice #2
• Th business should own d t
The b i h ld data
governance and MDM
– As tempting as it is to start & finish with the
p g
technology, it doesn’t work
– When MDM is driven by IT, the business
may not understand or buy in
– It’s hard, but start by building interest and
demand (recruiting) in the business
– Otherwise the business won’t be
Otherwise, won t
committed and getting funding will be tough
MDM’s nature (an ongoing program, rather than a “once &
done
done” project) means that even if the initial project is
funded, the business may not pick it up in Year 2 & beyond

24.
MDM Best Practice #3
• St
Strong project management &
j t t
organizational change management
– Given the political angst these initiatives
p g
cause, make sure you can’t be derailed by
opponents pointing to sloppy project
management or avoidable change
management issues
– If the project is “buttoned up”, then it’s
much harder for champions of the status
quo to throw stones at you, and you’ll make
it easier for follow-on projects to succeed
Deliver value, on time and on budget, and you’ll ensure
you ll
user adoption and achieve the expected ROI

25.
MDM Best Practice #4
• U a h li i approach – people,
Use holistic h l
process, technology and
information
– This may be the most important best
practice of all
– Start with the people politics & culture
people, culture,
then move on to the data governance
and stewardship processes
You’ll succeed if you invest the time in creating a Data
Governance team; recruiting the right senior executives
as sponsors; designing your processes for managing
master data and reporting how the MDM initiative helped
data,
the company achieve its strategic objectives

26.
MDM Best Practice #5
• B ild your processes t b ongoing &
Build to be i
repeatable; plan for continuous
improvement
p
– People still think their project will “go live”
and be done
– Your company will be creating, updating &
creating
using master data as long as it’s in
business
– If everyone relies on this data but no one’s
data, one s
accountable for its quality, over time, it will
become more and more chaotic & unusable
So plan for a “way of life”, not a project …

27.
MDM Best Practice #6
• M
Management needs t recognize the
t d to i th
importance of a dedicated team of
data stewards
– If there’s no dedicated data stewardship
function, no one lives & dies with the
accuracy, completeness, timeliness and
y, p ,
consistency of the critical information
the business runs on
– Before you sta t, co
eoe start, convince management
ce a age e t
of the need for a small team of data
stewards
Otherwise, the “lights are on, but nobody s home ;
lights nobody’s home”;
master data repositories don’t manage themselves

28.
MDM Best Practice #7
• U d t d your h b’ d t model
Understand hub’s data d l
and how it integrates with internal
systems and external p
y providers
– Some teams don’t spend the time to
understand their hub’s data model, or
to take inventory of and map their
y p
internal source systems
– So when issues crop up late in the
p oject, t s e y disruptive
project, it’s very d s upt e
These problems might be avoided by really understanding
your hub, and then mapping it back to your source
systems and external data providers

29.
MDM Best Practice #8
• R i t th urge t customize
Resist the to t i
– As the hubs mature, it's easier to
resist the temptation to customize
– Sometimes pushing the vendor to
improve future releases is a better
strategy than customization
– When you do customize, do it
carefully; make sure your changes
are “upgrade-friendly” and
pg y
documented
Most vendors are still revving their products once or
twice a year, so you don t want to get “rev locked
don’t rev locked”
on an older version

30.
MDM Best Practice #9
• St current with vendor-
Stay t ith d
provided patches and updates
– Plan for at least one upgrade during
pg g
the initial implementation
– Build “upgrade competency” into
your team
– Nothing’s worse than contacting the
vendor, and to hear a problem is
“fixed in the latest release”, but you
fixed release ,
can’t apply it for months or years
Vendors are constantly fixing problems reported by other
customers; make sure you re in a position to take
you’re
advantage of those fixes, and have the discipline to do it

31.
MDM Best Practice #10
• T t test, test and then test again
Test, t t t t d th t t i
– Your MDM hub is going to be different
from every other hub in the world
– You’ve got a unique variety of source
systems - and some of those may be
custom and won’t exist anywhere else
– Most vendors are doing much better at
testing and QA, but the burden of testing
remains squarely on the implementing
q y p g
company and the project team
Don’t assume that just because something’s in general
release,
release that it will work perfectly at your site

32.
MDM is a journey, not a sprint
• “N thi i thi world can t k
“Nothing in this ld take
the place of persistence. Talent
will not; nothing is more common
; g
than unsuccessful people with
talent. Genius will not;
unrewarded genius is almost a
proverb. Education will not; the
world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and d t
P i t d determination
i ti
alone are omnipotent.” – Calvin
Coolidge, 30th president of the
g p
United States